could you please add import options for other formats than 3dm and IGES,
in particular to be able to import polygonal meshes (dxf of 3ds for exemple).
I would like to be able to import rough models created in other apps, to be able to use a reference meshes.
thanks

Software for re-structuring costs many thousands dollar
http://www.geometrysystems.com
http://www.geomagic.com

for 195 dollar you can import obj,3ds,stl in Moi, but attention, by Polygon a surface,
afterwards manual work is necessary,edge extract, re-draw to smooth surface

http://www.sycode.com/products/mesh_to_solid/index.htm

Silo 3D (www.nevercenter.com) is a good inexpensive subdivision modeler that more or less pioneered retopology tools. You can give their demo a try and see of that works for you.

Another app more or less dedicated to the task - TopoGun (www.topogun.com) is another good app - they're currently in beta (and for some reason snatched up all their download links) but that's another app to consider for taking high density models and cleaning up their topology. (Make sure you check out their beta 1.2 video)

-Will

Hi Moka, that MeshToSolid program that Eddi should do the trick right now. Also if you have Rhino, open the poly mesh file in Rhino, then use the ExtractMeshEdges command to grab the edges as polyline curves, which can then be exported to .3dm and read into MoI, you will get the wireframe to work with that way.

It's going to be a chunk of work to support actual polygon mesh objects inside MoI as a different data type other than NURBS objects, it kind of opens up a lot of problems as far as how the 2 different kinds of objects would interact with each other for stuff like trimming, booleans, etc... So I don't think that I'm going to be doing that anytime too soon.

What I will probably do sooner than that is have a way to read in the polygon mesh as wireframe lines. That should give you stuff to snap on to and will generally be less difficult for me to do. But I'm trying to wrap things up for V1 right now so I'm trying to avoid adding any more major new features at this moment, I'm afraid that I won't be able to get this one in until after the initial V1 is released.

- Michael

thanks michael,
your proposal of bringing the mesh as wireframe lines would be already very good to have.

WillBellJr,
I don't see how Silo|s retopolgy tools would help me to bring in a polygonal mesh into Moi.....???

Yes, if you're interested in creating a NURBS object from a mesh then no, it wouldn't help.

Thing is, unless you're expecting to export out to a NURBS format, you're going to get polygons back out anyway.

The tools I mentioned are typically used to clean up .3DS and other dirty polygon meshes into a nice quad structure ready for animation etc.

Their inexpensive prices make them handy tools to have just for GP...

-Will

Halo Michael,

>What I will probably do sooner than that is have a way to read in the polygon mesh as wireframe lines.

a good idea, thanks